It is easy to conduct a background check. A very basic background check can be done by simply going online to Google and checking out what information it can find about a person.
Let’s face it, most people nowadays have various online ‘trails’ that include their Facebook profile, LinkedIn profile, and possibly details from other websites that they’ve registered on. Frankly speaking you’d be surprised just how much you can learn about a person simply by searching on Google.
That being said, if you’re looking for a more thorough background check then you’ll find that you generally have two options: Free background checks and paid background checks.
Free background checks normally just allow you to key in the name and social security number of the person that you’re checking up on and then will instantly provide you with a list of the results that they found. Paid background checks require more information, but they are quicker.
This is because paid background checks generally go into much more detail than free background checks.
What most people don’t realize is that a background check is only as good as its sources. After all, it needs to get the information about people from some place – and so how much information is churned up generally depends on the number and diversity of the sources that it uses.
Often, the type and amount of information you get is directly related to this.
Where a free background check would probably only look at general public records such as limited court records for a criminal check, and possibly online records – a paid background check would generally be more thorough and look through more court records, financial records, credit records and so on.
In a nutshell, it is a safe bet that you’re going to get a lot more information with a paid background check than you would with a free one. When it comes to cases where you need certain specific types of information or as much information as possible – a paid background check can provide you with that.
What is the main difference between a paid background check and a free one? Quite frankly you’ll find that the differences would be even more apparent if you tried them out for yourself and see what kind of information you obtain from both versions. That way you’ll be able to directly compare the differences between a free and paid background check and will see firsthand how the extra sources of information provide a much more complete picture.
